Now their firm, SolarCity, is coming forward with statistics they say show that the utilities are, at best, completely befuddled by the challenge and, at worst, may actively be throwing up obstacles along the path to connecting solar customers to the grid.

So far, of the 100 customers who've had units installed at their homes since they went on sale at the end of 2011, just 12 have been hooked into their local grid, SolarCity said. The firm now has a backlog of 500 applications for connections, and has had to stop adding to their queue.

"We're trying to drive down the road, but there’s a roadblock," said SolarCity spokesman Will Craven. "We're not going to drive through a roadblock — we're just waiting for roadblocks to be removed."

If certain steps in the installation process are not completed within a given period, SolarCity said, the customer must resubmit his or her application with a new $800 fee. SolarCity is calling this "illegal," arguing the fee itself violates a California statute governing enhancements to distributed solar.

For many customers, the delays have dragged on for years.

"It's not only arbitrary but punitive," Craven told Business Insider. "We try to be a good partner. We wanted to give utilities the benefit of doubt in the first year — it's a new technology, we wanted to collaborate on how to go about this. But as time has gone on, we realized we may not have a good-faith partner."

The most stubborn utility, Craven said, has been Southern California Edison, which is seeking to charge a $2,900 net metering fee on top of other costs it is seeking. That figure approaches a quarter of the cost of the total system cost, according to SolarCity.

The other major California utilities — Pacific Gas and Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) — are charging only $600 for the net metering cost. SolarCity said it's willing to eat the amount of $600 for now, but is rejecting the $2,900 figure.

In a statement, Southern California Edison said it is "working to address many of the complex issues raised by emerging technologies, including the additional costs of these interconnections."

Pacific Gas and Electric acknowledged there may have been some delays, but said they would have mostly been customer-specific. SDG&E said SolarCity has submitted just two completed applications, and that it is awaiting a third.

SolarCity counters that SDG&E has, like the other firms, continually changed its requirements.

"It was only when SDG&E notified us that they were considering charging our customers a monthly standby charge that things ground to a halt — we didn’t want to burden our customers with a charge they hadn’t considered, and that we didn’t believe was legal in the first place," Craven said in a follow-up email to Business Insider. But he said SolarCity would continue to work with SDG&E toward hooking up more customers.

California just approved a mandate that utilities must install 1,325 megawatts' worth of electricity storage capacity by the end of 2020. Craven said it is thus even more inexplicable that there are "roadblocks."

Joel Eddins, who with his wife and three children live in San Bernardino County, near Los Angeles, said he's been waiting since August 2012 — when he purchased his battery unit — to get his system connected by Southern California Edison.

"They’re not very helpful — they just don’t care," Eddins said. "It's like when a kid rides a city bus — if he jumped out in front and the driver decided they didn't feel like picking the person up. I feel like I'm being treated like that as adult."

Eddins sent a photo to illustrate the almost comically absurd situation he faces. Southern California Edison has installed two different meters (left) on the side of his house, in addition to his regular home meter, as part of their grid-connection process.

The California Public Utilities Commission directed Business Insider to comments made by its president, Michael R. Peevey, at a recent panel he sat on with Musk and Rive. Peevey expressed sympathy with SolarCity's case.

Craven said the commission should make a final ruling in the coming weeks on net metering costs and application fees.